PEORIA — Anger about a person not answering his phone calls and an inability to retrieve his things apparently drove a Chicago man to start a fatal house fire four years ago, a jury heard Friday.

After about 45 minutes of questioning by Peoria police detectives, Aunterrio Barney, 37, admitted his anger, already rising after hours of missed calls, boiled over when he looked up at a window in the upper floor apartment at 1212 N. University St. on April 21, 2010, and saw someone looking down on him.

That rage boiled over, and Barney allegedly left for his house, got a gas can, filled it up, went back to the house and poured it onto the only stairwell.

“I done poured the gas. I am not lying about that,” he said. “I poured it on the side (of the house).”

Barney described seeing the glow of a TV screen through the window where he had seen a person hours before. His anger flared up again and without thinking and mentally exhausted from the night, he told police he flicked his cigarette on the ground and things “went out of control instantly.”

What resulted, he said, was a fiery blaze that partially burned him and caused him to flee. Barney is heard on the tape saying he thought the occupants could have escaped and told police he was shocked to hear they all died.

But the fire, which quickly grew, blocked the only exit out for the four people in the upstairs apartment.

He got emotional during the hour-long videotape statement, telling police then that he only wanted to talk to them because he had heard a 2-year-old boy had died in the blaze.

“Only reason I’m going to tell y’all what happened is because of the baby,” said a tearful Barney.

He’s charged with multiple counts of murder and arson in connection with the house fire that killed Youlandice Simmons, 24, and her pregnant sister, Briana Simmons, 22, along with 19-year-old Darresse Roddy. The son of Youlandice Simmons, 2-year-old Darryl Miller Jr., died the next day at St. John’s Hospital in Springfield.

After 21 witnesses and two full days of testimony, Peoria County prosecutors rested their case against Barney, who is expected to take the stand Monday. His attorney, Hugh Toner, put on two witnesses, including a fingerprint expert who challenged an assertion earlier that a fingerprint on the gas can belonged to Barney.

During the interview, Barney’s story changed a few times. First, he said he wasn’t there. Then he said he bought gas for another man who was friends with Youlandice Simmons.

Finally, after pressure from police detectives Tim Moore and Steve Garner, who clearly didn’t believe him, Barney told them about the cigarette. He professed that he didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt and also said he hoped the people had gotten away. He was terrified, he said, and fled the area, only to be arrested in North Carolina two months later.

Toner assailed Garner during cross-examination, attacking his interview tactics, challenging his credibility and hinting that the detective did what he could to coerce a statement from his client.

Friday was an emotional day at trial, beginning with friends and family members of the victims. Tayo Faulkner, Youlandice’s and Briana’s sister, cried when prosecutors showed a photo of her sister and Miller. Others in the audience cried openly. A few left the room after seeing the two smiling faces on the large projection screen.

Faulkner talked about how her sister, Youlandice, gathered with family the night before the fire for her birthday. Her phone, Faulkner testified, was ringing a lot, but she didn’t answer most of the calls.

From 8 p.m. until shortly before 1 a.m., Barney allegedly left nine messages that start off friendly but grow increasingly hostile. In the last message, the man is heard saying, “I’m going to get you for this.”

Toner challenged the voice mails and noted the person who vouched for who was talking was his client’s former girlfriend, Sueara Foucher. The woman took the stand and told jurors she had planned to break up with Barney after she arrived home the night before the fire and found her TV missing. But Barney, she said, wasn’t at the home on Fremont Street.

In fact, she said, he arrived at her home about 8:45 a.m. and claimed he couldn’t have taken the TV because he had started a fire at the home of a woman who owed him $50. Foucher said that when he first arrived, he asked, “are the police looking for me?”

Foucher said she had filed a police report on him about the TV the night before but hadn’t talked to him before he arrived at her house that morning.

Barney faces a mandatory life sentence if convicted of all the charges he is facing.

Andy Kravetz can be reached at 686-3283 or akravetz@pjstar.com. For live courtroom updates, follow him on Twitter @andykravetz.